Apparently not. Were there enough, Islaam would be not be particularly troubled by scripturalists and fundamentalists.
There would be at least a clear path for its recovery from that self-inflicted plague.
There is no evidence of such.
But it's not about rescuing Islaam from itself. It's about different notions of Islaam 'competing' with each other and with other notions of other religions in the local, regional or global marketplace of ideas.
Far as the evidence shows, you are wrong. It is exactly about rescuing Islaam - as well as everyone else - from Islaam.
Appealling as the notion of the current climate being a particularly nasty form of a regular clash of cultures or even of religions views is, it does not seem believable anymore.
Some will fade away altogether. Others will fade away in time. Others will evolve into something else (perhaps within the bounds of what might reasonably be called Islaam, perhaps outside). Islaam doesn't need rescuing.
It needed rescuing for pretty much all of history. From itself. The current time is no different. There is still not nearly enough room for open discussion, hardly enough challenge of the attachment to scripture and tradition, not even enough of a challenge to the rather tribalistic and bloodthirst parts of the doctrine.
Islaam had and has the warning tale of the history of Christianity to point out the main traps ahead of it. It was and is challenged by better minds at its every turn. And
still, after 1400 years, it shows a depressing lack of as much of functional awareness of its own drawbacks and weaknesses, insisting instead on taking refuge in various interpretations of scripture and the temptation of blaming "foreigners" for its recurrent failure to make good of its ambitious promises.
So, no, I don't think I can be made to agree with your hopes, much as I would like to. The facts just aren't on your side.
Yes. You seem to have a problem with 'Islaam' on the basis that there is only one notion of Islaam - one that you consider to be fundamentally opposed to ideas of freedom, progress, human development (towards things that most people would consider to be good things regardless of their religious affiliation, or something like that).
There are many varieties of Islaam, certainly. Unfortunately, what defines them all as Islaam leaves precious little hope - or reason - to expect Islaam to survive as such once it is sufficiently reformed.
I'm all for it. Both Muslims and us Kuffar truly need and deserve such a reformation. But I don't want to pretend that I think Islaam can be salvaged without becoming something other than Islaam. I am at this point certain that such is not the case.
But I am arguing that that is something of a straw man.
I used to assume as much. Years of exposure to what seems to be the best we can currently get in the way of arguing for the merits of Islaam convinced me otherwise.
Yes, there are some Muslims, and some notions of Islaam, which are opposed to these ideas. But there are also some Muslims, with their notions of Islaam, which aren't necessarily opposed to these things (at least, no more than the next religious adherent might be).
Indeed! And that is a very good thing, too. They exist and they will ever keep arising. All societies are blessed by people of good will and good discernment, and Islamic ones are certainly not all an exception.
Unfortunately, by virtue of being Muslims - and therefore existing in Islamic societies - their badly needed help is stymied from the get-go, and they can hardly hope for better than being neglected by their own brothers in faith.
So I would argue for a modification of your stance - that some notions of Islaam must end/be ended, but not 'Islaam' (in all its many, varied forms).
I would probably agree - and I certainly hope I can be made to agree - but the facts just aren't there to help me.
Well that depends on the nature of the reformation.
Fair enough.
My understanding is that such a reformation would need to focus on dissolving, if not destroying outright, the insistence on necessarily taking the side of Muslims over Kuffar when controversy or conflict arises. In fact, on dissolving the very perception that Muslims are necessarily different in any significant way from Dhimmi and Kuffar. It would also need a lot of emphasis on the merits of questioning authority and on acknowledging that personal understanding is worthier than obedience to scripture alone.
I don't think that can happen without effectively destroying Islaam.
If I am mistaken about that, I will be very pleased indeed. But I doubt it can happen. I tried for a long time to convince myself of that, and I ended up very consistently disappointed and learned ever more troubling lessons about Islaam in the attempt.
And yet they tend to interpret the Qur'aan in ways that are rather more in keeping with 'Western' notions of good morals, religion's place in society etc.
As is to be expected. They (Ahmadiyya Muslims) do, after all, live in non-Muslim societies, or at least surrounded and protected by those.
Still, once one pays attention to what they preach, the differences in doctrine seem to be rather minimal and of very little real consequence.
If it means that on his authority they can interpret out the parts that you (or they) find troubling, though, it is quite a significant innovation. In something of a similar way to the Baha'is have done.
Yes, it is. The Bahai Faith is also more troubling than most people realize. Reliance on central authority figures, on scripture and on the idea of a Creator God is a very difficult choice for a religion that wants to remain healthy.
The Bahai have the benefit of encouraging themselves to learn from other religions, and that is no small thing. To an apparently significantly lesser extent, so do the Ahmadi. But welcome and significant as those differences are, they are hardly enough.
Ah, but wait a minute, we were talking about the belief in the existence of a Creator God (and adherence to the divine source of a holy book), weren't we? It's not just the most extremist Christians who hold to such notions (whether within Christianity, or beyond).
The correspondence is not exact, and Christians do benefit from having generally more open societies that learned from more of a variety of perspectives, but I still think that those notions have a very direct correspondence to the largely self-imposed maladies of both Islaam and Christianity. It just turns out that Christianity is somewhat better suited to survive its own reformation, largely because it does not entirely need a definite political component (unlike Islaam).
Ah, so you are saying that it's not just about believing in a Creator God and a divinely-revealed book then? What else is it that is for you so nasty and dangerous about Islaam and Christianity that is not quite so nasty or dangerous about Judaism?
Judaism is about brotherhood and mutual commitment above all else. Islaam is bound by the Qur'an, which means that it largely defines itself on how to deal with Kuffar and how to submit to God.
Quite simply, the Jewish People have managed to learn better than to be slaves of scripture or to have any tolerance for racism.
I think you'll find that the average Muslim very much believes in the notion of personal responsibility for one's actions - that arguably goes hand in hand with notions of free will and reward/punishment in an Afterlife.
That does not seem to work very well at all in practice. Those notions are a very poor, unstable and eminently corruptible substitute for morality.
I understand that we largely fail to acknowledge that because most people are either exposed to enough of good examples from non-believers to learn better anyway, or instead they are unfortunate enough to be surrounded by too many believers to realize that true morality is both possible and better than fear of God.
For that reason, Muslim societies tend to seek isolation that is actually harming them. There is a lot of sorrow to be had in opening themselves to alien ways of thinking, but all the same that is very much what they need.
That depends both on one's notion of God and what God sanctions, and one's notion of immorality.
Not really, not significantly. Surrendering one's conceptions of morality to a scripture or to the fear of God is effectively the same as giving up on morality altogether and choosing instead to take fear and conformance to the expectations of others as a (very problematic) substitute.
